You say it. You let them respond, if they want to. Then you talk about your apology. You state exactly what it is that you're apologizing for, and it has to be something you did, something you can take responsibility for.
The next piece is how you plan on preventing the same thing from happening in the future.
And if he hates you, then that's his right, Cain. Unfortunately. But if you're truly sorry, then it isn't about maintaining a relationship. You're trying to make amends and repair damage that you did.
The Alliance pulled me out of prison for a 'special assignment'. Said they could use someone like me. They'd pair me up with a navigator and a starfighter with some experimental tech installed. I was supposed to get close to my partner. Make sure they felt something for me. That's how the tech works - what makes it trigger.
Abel didn't know about any of it. I pushed him into a physical relationship with me and made sure I chased off anyone who could warn him about what I was doing. I had him tailed. I spent a year making him believe I really cared about him, keeping him close, manipulating him every chance I got.
Because it was him or me, and he was my last chance to get it right. If I didn't do it I was being sent back to that hellhole. Prison on the colonies is bad. Even worse with an Alliance target on you. I couldn't afford to fail.
[Nothing more than that for now. Of course Sheehan doesn't judge him for it and of course he doesn't think of him differently, but there's a certain steel to his intentions now.]
[He doesn't say that it's because his brain hadn't finished forming or that trauma impacts the mind, especially in childhood, and that manipulation of this kind is a Very Big Deal that was inappropriately sprung on him.]
It sounds like you were a victim just like Abel was. Not that it absolves you, but there is only so much guilt you can carry.
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The next piece is how you plan on preventing the same thing from happening in the future.
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Whatever you're thinking it is that I might have done, it's probably not that.
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And if he hates you, then that's his right, Cain. Unfortunately. But if you're truly sorry, then it isn't about maintaining a relationship. You're trying to make amends and repair damage that you did.
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It's Abel. He's the one I
It makes it more complicated that it's him.
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It's going to change how you look at me.
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I am not diminishing what is likely a very big, very important secret. But I know myself. And what I have seen from people. And I know my limits.
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[Okay...]
The Alliance pulled me out of prison for a 'special assignment'. Said they could use someone like me. They'd pair me up with a navigator and a starfighter with some experimental tech installed. I was supposed to get close to my partner. Make sure they felt something for me. That's how the tech works - what makes it trigger.
Abel didn't know about any of it. I pushed him into a physical relationship with me and made sure I chased off anyone who could warn him about what I was doing. I had him tailed. I spent a year making him believe I really cared about him, keeping him close, manipulating him every chance I got.
Because it was him or me, and he was my last chance to get it right. If I didn't do it I was being sent back to that hellhole. Prison on the colonies is bad. Even worse with an Alliance target on you. I couldn't afford to fail.
Then he found out about all of it.
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[Nothing more than that for now. Of course Sheehan doesn't judge him for it and of course he doesn't think of him differently, but there's a certain steel to his intentions now.]
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Everything kind of fell to shit around us and we had to get out of there. We stole our starfighter and ran.
I don't know what happened after.
[Because that's when he's supposed to have died, but he still doesn't believe that happened.]
When I showed up here... things were weird, at the start. And we still haven't talked about it.
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Things seem fine.
But we haven't talked about it. And we should, right? We can't just pretend it didn't happen.
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This place created a very nice distraction. But you're right. You need to talk about it.
And starting with an apology like we talked about would be good.
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I get it if you want to keep your distance after this.
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I don't think differently of you.
You're a very young man who was given an impossible choice. You did what you thought was best.
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I did what I thought would save my own ass.
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[He doesn't say that it's because his brain hadn't finished forming or that trauma impacts the mind, especially in childhood, and that manipulation of this kind is a Very Big Deal that was inappropriately sprung on him.]
It sounds like you were a victim just like Abel was. Not that it absolves you, but there is only so much guilt you can carry.
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I can't just pretend that I didn't
That I went through all of that and fucked around with Abel and the others and didn't know what I was doing
Maybe it was a shitty choice to have to make but I made it
[And thank fuck for autocorrect, because by the end of that he can barely see the screen.]
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I know they made you think that.
But you were not given a choice. Not really.
You might have known what you were doing, but would you have chosen the same way if the other choice was freedom?
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If I didn't have to do any of it and they'd just let me go?
No, of course not. I wouldn't have done any of it.
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It's a forced choice, which is what people use when they want someone to do something and make it seem like it was their idea.
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I could have been nicer to him.
You've seen that scar on his lip, right? I did that. I did it to make sure everyone knew which navigator was mine.
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But it's exhausting to carry guilt you didn't earn.
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